Olympia (beer)
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Tumwater brewery in 1989
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| Industry | Alcoholic beverage |
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| Founded | 1896, 121 years ago in Tumwater, Washington |
| Founder | Leopold Friederich Schmidt |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
| Products | Beer |
| Owner | Pabst Brewing Company |
| Website | olympia-beer.com |
The Olympia Brewing Company was a brewery in the northwest United States, located in Tumwater, Washington, near Olympia. Founded 121 years ago in 1896 by Leopold Friederich Schmidt, it was bought by G. Heileman Brewing Company in 1983. Through a series of consolidations, it was acquired by Pabst Brewing Company in 1999; the Tumwater brewery was closed in 2003 but the Olympia brand continues, currently contract brewed by MillerCoors in southern California.
Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Pabst moved its headquarters from suburban Chicago to Los Angeles in 2011. On November 13, 2014, Pabst announced that it had completed its sale to Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings, LLC. Blue Ribbon is a partnership between American beer entrepreneur Eugene Kashper and TSG Consumer Partners, a San Francisco–based private equity firm. Prior reports suggested the price agreed upon was around $700 million.
Leopold Schmidt, a German immigrant from Montana founded The Capital Brewing Company at Tumwater Falls on the Deschutes River in the town of Tumwater, near the south end of Puget Sound. He built a four-story wooden brewhouse, a five-story cellar building, a one-story ice factory powered by the lower falls, and a bottling and keg plant and in 1896, began brewing and selling Olympia Beer. In 1902, the firm became Olympia Brewing Company, with Frank Kenney as the Company Secretery. It was Frank Kenney who propsed the slogan "It's the Water" to promote the brewery's flagship product. Statewide Prohibition, which began in January 1916, four years before National Prohibition, ended beer making operations. After Prohibition ended, a new Olympia Brewery (47°00′56″N 122°54′13″W / 47.0155°N 122.9035°W) was erected just upstream from the original, and Olympia beer went back on sale in 1934.
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